Brian Rinker

Having fled quickly — often without medications, wheelchairs or pets to comfort them — refugees from the Camp Fire manage as best they can in makeshift shelters miles from home. A virus is spreading, and medical attention is spotty.

The front-runner in the California governor’s race, known for his political audacity, has officially endorsed the controversial move to create one public insurance program for all Californians. Yet he also faces formidable challenges, and liberal critics fear he’ll retreat.

In a Medicaid-funded pilot project starting with 19 counties, clinicians and other providers are now in charge of deciding what kind of treatment an offender needs. The change has rankled some judges and attorneys — and forced some felons to spend more time in jail — but it has been largely embraced by clinicians and county agencies.

Customized iPhones are just one example of devices that can be used to combat health threats in developing countries. They are helping scientists in California and Cameroon attack the parasite that causes river blindness, an African scourge.

An addiction-treatment physician fatally shot a troubled ex-Marine after the man pummeled him inside his California office, police records show. The tragedy illustrates how the limited number of clinics available to prescribe buprenorphine, a drug that all but erases opioid withdrawal, can become crowded, chaotic and dangerous.

Hoping to head off mental health crises, university officials say they will provide free online treatment to those who need it. The officials believe theirs is the largest effort of its kind in the country.

Heather Menzel thought returning to her rural California hometown was the answer to her addiction problems. Then she discovered the town had no medical treatment options for her — but plenty of heroin.